Dunn County managers reported July 16 that the county ran a Code Red test to exercise its continuity of operations/continuity of government (COOP/COG) notification procedure for a possible cybersecurity incident.

Chris, the County Manager, told the Executive Committee the emergency-notification drill followed several months of work to gather employees’ contact information and load it into Code Red. “A couple weeks ago, on a Thursday morning, we ran a drill and said we had been subject to a cybersecurity incident … and we basically only tracked how many responses we got within 15 minutes. And we got about half of our workforce,” he said.

Staff described the exercise as the first step in building an operational process to quickly instruct employees to shut down technology and to assemble the right personnel via alternate communications. County IT and emergency-preparedness staff will debrief departments at the next department-head meeting, adjust procedures, and run another drill in the fall. The county also said it has processes to add and remove staff contact data from Code Red as personnel join or leave county employment.

Committee members asked procedural and practical follow-ups. Leaders emphasized that the test results—roughly 50% response within the 15-minute window—show the system functions, but also highlighted the need to refine reachability for 24/7 operations where staff may be asleep or unavailable.

This was a report item; no formal action or vote was taken in committee. Staff said they will continue to refine the contact list and run future drills.